Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty
among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold
War.
The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
, the regional economic organization for the communist States of Central and Eastern Europe.
The Warsaw Pact was in part a Soviet military reaction to the integration of West Germany
into NATO in 1955, per the Paris Pacts of 1954 but was primarily motivated by Soviet
desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe which
in turn to maintain peace in Europe, were guided by the objective points and principles
of the Charter of the United Nations after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the
Cold War.
The alliance was transformed into the subsequent Collective Security Treaty Organization, or
CSTO.
Language nomenclature In the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization
of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance;
abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP.
Elsewhere, in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:
Albanian: Pakti i miqësisë, bashkëpunimit dhe i ndihmës së përbashkët
Bulgarian: Договор за дружба, сътрудничество и взаимопомощ
Romanized Bulgarian: Dogovor za druzhba, satrudnichestvo i vzaimopomosht
Czech: Smlouva o přátelství, spolupráci a vzájemné pomoci
Slovak: Zmluva o priateľstve, spolupráci a vzájomnej pomoci
German: Vertrag über Freundschaft, Zusammenarbeit und gegenseitigen Beistand
Hungarian: Barátsági, együttműködési és kölcsönös segítségnyújtási szerződés
Polish: Układ o Przyjaźni, Współpracy i Pomocy Wzajemnej
Romanian: Tratatul de prietenie, cooperare şi asistenţă mutuală
Russian: Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи
Romanized Russian: Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoy pomoshchi
Structure The Warsaw Treaty's organization was seven-fold:
the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command
of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in
Warsaw, Poland.
Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty
Organization was also a First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the Chief of Combined
Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization also was a First Deputy
Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated
the Warsaw Treaty armed forces.
Strategy The strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw
Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe.
This policy was driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons.
Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism
and act as the leader of the global socialist movement.
A corollary to this idea was the necessity of intervention if a country appeared to be
violating core socialist ideas and Communist Party functions, which was explicitly stated
in the Brezhnev Doctrine.
Geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its territory
by Western European powers, which had occurred most recently by Nazi Germany in 1941.
The invasion launched by Hitler had been exceptionally brutal and the USSR emerged from the Second
World War in 1945 with the greatest total casualties of any participant in the war,
suffering an estimated 27 million killed along with the destruction of much of the nation's
industrial capacity.
History Beginnings
In March 1954, the USSR, fearing "the restoration of German Militarism" in West Germany, requested
admission to NATO.
By then, laws had already been passed in West Germany ending denazification and the Gehlen
Organization, predecessor of the West German Federal Intelligence Service, was fully operative
and employing hundreds of ex-Nazis.
The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February
1954.
Molotov made different proposals to have Germany reunified and elections for a pan-German government,
under conditions of withdrawal of the four powers armies and German neutrality, but all
were refused by the other foreign ministers, Dulles (USA), Eden (UK) and Bidault (France).
Proposals for the reunification of Germany were nothing new: Earlier in 1952, talks about
a German reunification ended after the United Kingdom, France, and the United States insisted
that a unified Germany should not be neutral and should be free to join the EDC and rearm.
Consequently Molotov, fearing that EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR
therefore "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against
other European States", made a proposal for a General European Treaty on Collective Security
in Europe "open to all European States without regard as to their social systems" which would
have included the unified Germany (thus making EDC – perceived by the USSR as a threat
– unusable).
But again, Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal.
One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the
EDC but also by western opponents of the European Defense Community (like French Gaullist leader
Palewski) who perceived it as "unacceptable in its present form because it excludes the
USA from participation in the collective security system in Europe".
The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France
stating to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement.
And considering that another argument deployed against the Soviet proposal was that it was
perceived by western powers as "directed against the North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation",
the Soviets decided to declare their "readiness to examine jointly with other interested parties
the question of the participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that
"the admittance of the USA into the General European Agreement should not be conditional
on the three western powers agreeing to the USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact".
Again all proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by UK, US, and
French governments shortly after.
Emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion,
who said that NATO "must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella."
He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that "the Soviet request
to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force" thus
representing NATO alliance as a "police force" directed against the "burglar" USSR.
In April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles.
Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer
that EDC would have to become a part of NATO.
Memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was
feared by France too.
On 30 August 1954 French Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure and blocking
a major objective of US policy towards Europe: to associate Germany militarily with the West.
The US Department of State started to elaborate alternatives: Germany would be invited to
join NATO or, in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would
be implemented in order to obtain a German rearmament outside NATO.
On 23 October 1954 – only nine years after Allies (UK, USA and USSR) defeated Nazi Germany
ending World War II in Europe – the Federal Republic of Germany was finally admitted to
the North Atlantic Pact.
The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as
"a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Affairs
Minister of Norway at the time.
On 14 May 1955, the USSR and other seven European countries "reaffirming their desire for the
establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all
European states irrespective of their social and political systems" established the Warsaw
Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring
that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic
bloc increase the danger of another war and constitutes a threat to the national security
of the peaceable states; in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the
necessary measures to safeguard their security".
Members The eight member countries of the Warsaw Pact
pledged the mutual defense of any member who would be attacked.
Relations among the treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-intervention in the
internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty, and political
independence.
However, almost all governments of those members states were indirectly controlled by the Soviet
Union.
The founding signatories to the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance
consisted of the following communist governments: People's Republic of Albania (withheld support
in 1961 because of the Sino–Soviet split, formally withdrew in 1968)
People's Republic of Bulgaria Czechoslovak Republic (Czechoslovak Socialist
Republic since 1960) German Democratic Republic (withdrew in September
1990, before German reunification) People's Republic of Hungary
People's Republic of Poland (withdrew on January 1, 1990)
People's Republic of Romania Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
In July 1963 the Mongolian People's Republic asked to join the Warsaw Pact under Article
9 of the treaty.
For this purpose a special protocol should have been taken since the text of the treaty
applied only to Europe.
Due to the emerging Sino-Soviet split, Mongolia remained an observer status.
Soviet stationing troops were agreed to stay in Mongolia from 1966.
During Cold War For 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Treaty never
directly waged war against each other in Europe; the United States and the Soviet Union and
their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each
other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the wider Cold War on
the international stage.
In 1956, following the declaration of the Imre Nagy government of withdrawal of Hungary
from the Warsaw Pact, Soviet troops entered the country and removed the government.
Soviet forces crushed the nation-wide revolt, leading to death of an estimated 2,500 Hungarian
citizens.
The multi-national Communist armed forces' sole joint action was the Warsaw Pact invasion
of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
All member countries, with the exception of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the
People's Republic of Albania participated in the invasion.
End of the Cold War Beginning at the Cold War's conclusion, in
late 1989, popular civil and political public discontent forced the Communist governments
of the Warsaw Treaty countries from power – independent national politics made feasible
with the perestroika- and glasnost-induced institutional collapse of Communist government
in the USSR.
Eventually, the populaces of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and
Bulgaria deposed their Communist governments in the period from 1989–91.
On 25 February 1991, the Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defense and foreign
ministers from Pact countries meeting in Hungary.
On 1 July 1991, in Prague, the Czechoslovak President Václav Havel formally ended the
1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance and so
disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR.
The treaty was de facto disbanded in December 1989 during the violent revolution in Romania
that toppled the communist government there.
The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991.
Central and Eastern Europe after the Warsaw Treaty
On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO; Bulgaria, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia joined in March 2004; Croatia and Albania joined
on 1 April 2009.
Russia and some other post-USSR states joined in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation
(CSTO).
In November 2005, the Polish government opened its Warsaw Treaty archives to the Institute
of National Remembrance, who published some 1,300 declassified documents in January 2006.
Yet the Polish government reserved publication of 100 documents, pending their military declassification.
Eventually, 30 of the reserved 100 documents were published; 70 remained secret, and unpublished.
Among the documents published is the Warsaw Treaty's nuclear war plan, Seven Days to the
River Rhine – a short, swift attack capturing Austria, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands
east of River Rhine, using nuclear weapons, in self-defense, after a NATO first strike.
The plan originated as a 1979 field training exercise war game, and metamorphosed into
official Warsaw Treaty battle doctrine, until the late 1980s – which is why the People’s
Republic of Poland was a nuclear weapons base, first, to 178, then, to 250 tactical-range
rockets.
Doctrinally, as a Soviet-style (offensive) battle plan, Seven Days to the River Rhine
gave commanders few defensive-war strategies for fighting NATO in Warsaw Treaty territory.